For 15 years, President Liu was the third most powerful man in China, behind only Chairman Mao Zedong and Premier Zhou Enlai. Originally groomed as Mao's successor, Liu antagonized him in the early 1960s before the Cultural Revolution, and from 1966 onward was criticized, then purged, by Mao. Liu disappeared from public life in 1968 and was labelled the "commander of China's bourgeoisie headquarters", China's foremost "capitalist-roader", and a traitor to the revolution.

He joined the newly formed Communist Party of China (CPC) in 1921. The next year he returned to China, and as secretary of the All-China Labor Syndicate led several railway workers' strikes, in the Yangzi Valley and at Anyuan on the Jiangxi-Hunan border.[1]

In 1925, Liu became a member of the Guangzhou-based All-China Federation of Labor Executive Committee. During the next two years he led numerous political campaigns and strikes in Hubei and Shanghai. He worked with Li Lisan in Shanghai in 1925, organizing Communist activity following the May Thirtieth Incident. After his work in Shanghai, Liu traveled to Wuhan. He was briefly arrested in Changsha and then returned to Guangzhou to help organize the 16-month-long Canton-Hong Kong strike.[3]

He was elected to the Party's Central Committee in 1927, and was appointed to the head of its Labor Department.[4] Liu returned to work at the Party headquarters in Shanghai in 1929, and was named Secretary of the Manchurian Party Committee in Fengtian.[5] In 1930 and 1931, he attended the Third and Fourth Plenums of the Sixth Central Committee, and was elected to the Central Executive Committee (i.e., Politburo) of the Chinese Soviet Republic in 1931 or 1932. Later in 1932, he left Shanghai and traveled to the Jiangxi Soviet.[6]

In 1937, Liu traveled to the Communist base at Yanan; in 1941, he became a political commissar of the New Fourth Army.[7] He was elected as one of five CPC Secretaries at the Seventh National Party Congress in 1945. After that Congress, he became the supreme leader of all Communist forces in Manchuria and northern China,[7] a stature frequently overlooked by historians.

Liu's work focused on party organizational and theoretical affairs.[8] He was an orthodox Soviet-style Communist, and favored state planning and the development of heavy industry. He elaborated upon his political and economic beliefs in his writings. His best known works include How to be a Good Communist (1939), On the Party (1945), and Internationalism and Nationalism (1952).

As a result, Liu gained influence within the party; in April 1959, he succeeded Mao as President of the People's Republic of China. However, Liu began to voice indications of concern about the outcomes of the Great Leap in the August 1959 Lushan Plenum.[9] In order to correct the mistakes of the Great Leap Forward, Liu and Deng led economic reforms that bolstered their prestige among the party apparatus and the national populace. Once, he said to Mao: "People write books about cannibalism!" [10] The economic policies of Deng and Liu were notable for being more moderate than Mao's radical ideas.

Liu was publicly acknowledged as Mao's chosen successor in 1961;[1] however, by 1962 his opposition to Mao's policies had led Mao to mistrust him.[11] After Mao succeeded in restoring his prestige during the 1960s,[12] Liu's eventual downfall became "inevitable". Liu's position as the second-most powerful leader of the CPC contributed to Mao's rivalry with him at least as much as Liu's political beliefs or factional allegiances in the 1960s,[11] indicating that Liu's later persecution was the result of a power struggle that went beyond the goals and well-being of either China or the Party.

By 1966, few senior leaders in China questioned the need for a widespread reform to combat the growing problems of corruption and bureaucratisation within the Party and the government. With the goal of reforming the government to be more efficient and true to the Communist ideal, Liu himself chaired the enlarged Politburo meeting that officially began the Cultural Revolution. However, Liu and his political allies quickly lost control of the Cultural Revolution soon after it was called, when Mao used the movement to progressively monopolize political power and to destroy his perceived enemies.[13]

Whatever its other causes, the Cultural Revolution, declared in 1966, was overtly pro-Maoist, and gave Mao the power and influence to purge the Party of his political enemies at the highest levels of government. Along with closing China's schools and universities, and Mao's exhortations to young Chinese to randomly destroy old buildings, temples, and art, and to attack their teachers, school administrators, party leaders, and parents,[14] the Cultural Revolution also increased Mao's prestige so much that entire villages adopted the practice of offering prayers to Mao before every meal.[15]

In both national politics and Chinese popular culture, Mao established himself as a demigod accountable to no one, purging any that he suspected of opposing him[16] and directing the masses and Red Guards "to destroy virtually all state and party institutions".[13] After the Cultural Revolution was announced, most of the most senior members of the CPC who had voiced any hesitation in following Mao's direction, including Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping, were removed from their posts almost immediately; and, with their families, subjected to mass criticism and humiliation.[14]

Liu and Deng, along with many others, were denounced as "capitalist roaders". Liu was labeled as a "traitor" and "the biggest capitalist roader in the Party"; he was displaced as Party Deputy Chairman by Lin Biao in July 1966. By 1967, Liu and his wife Wang Guangmei were placed under house arrest in Beijing. Liu was removed from all his positions and expelled from the Party in October 1968. After his arrest, Liu disappeared from public view.

Liu was beaten regularly at public denunciation meetings after his arrest in 1967. He was denied medicine for his diabetes, by then a long-term illness, and for pneumonia, which he developed after his arrest. Liu was eventually given treatment only when Jiang Qing feared he would die; she desired that Liu be kept alive to serve as a "living target" during the Ninth Party Congress in 1969.[17]

At the Congress, Liu was denounced as a traitor and an enemy agent. Zhou Enlai read the Party verdict that Liu was "a criminal traitor, enemy agent and scab in the service of the imperialists, modern revisionists and the Kuomintang reactionaries". Liu's conditions did not improve after he was denounced in the Congress, and he died soon afterward.[17][18]

In a memoir written by Liu's principal physician, he disputed the alleged medical maltreatment of Liu during his last days. According to Dr. Gu Qihua, there was a dedicated medical team in charge of treating Liu's illness; between July 1968 and October 1969, Liu had seven total occurrences of pneumonia due to his deteriorating immune system, and there had been a total of 40 group consultations by top medical professionals regarding the treatment of this disease. Liu was closely monitored daily by the medical team, and they made the best effort given the adverse circumstance. He died of illness on November 12, 1969, and was cremated next day.[19]

In February 1980, two years after Deng Xiaoping came to power, the Fifth Plenum of the 11th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China issued the "Resolution on the Rehabilitation of Comrade Liu Shaoqi". The resolution declared Liu's ouster to be unjust and removed the labels of "renegade, traitor and scab" that had been attached to him at the time of his death. It also declared him to be "a great Marxist and proletarian revolutionary" and recognized him as one of the principal leaders of the Party. Lin Biao was blamed for "concocting false evidence" against Liu, and for working with the Gang of Four to subject him to "political frame-up and physical persecution". A high-profile national memorial ceremony was held for Liu on May 17, 1980, and his ashes were scattered into the sea at Qingdao in accordance with his last wishes.[20][21]

Liu married five times, including He Baozhen (何宝珍)[22] and Wang Guangmei (王光美).[23]
His third wife Xie Fei (谢飞) came from Wenchang, Hainan and was one of the few women on the 1934 Long March.[24]
His wife at the time of his death in 1969, Wang Guangmei, was thrown into prison by Mao Zedong during the Cultural Revolution; she was subjected to harsh conditions in solitary confinement for more than a decade.[25]

1.
President of the People's Republic of China
–
The President of the Peoples Republic of China is the head of state of the Peoples Republic of China. Under the constitution, the presidency is a ceremonial office with limited powers. However, since 1993, as a matter of convention, the presidency has been held simultaneously by the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, the current President is Xi Jinping, who took office in March 2013. Since 1993, apart from periods of transition, the top leader of China simultaneously serves as the President, the head of the party. This individual then carries out different duties under separate titles, the office was first established in the Constitution of the Peoples Republic of China in 1954 and successively held by Mao Zedong and Liu Shaoqi. Liu fell into disgrace during the Cultural Revolution, after which the office became vacant. The office was abolished under the Constitution of 1975, then reinstated in the Constitution of 1982, the official English-language translation of the title was Chairman, after 1982, this translation was changed to President, although the Chinese title remains unchanged. The President is limited to serve up to two terms of five years each, according to the current Constitution of the Peoples Republic of China, the President must be a Chinese citizen with full electoral rights who has reached the age of 45. The Presidents term of office is the same as the term of the National Peoples Congress, the President is elected by the National Peoples Congress, Chinas highest state body, which also has the power to remove the President and other state officers from office. Elections and removals are decided by a majority vote. According to the Organic Law of the NPC, the President is nominated by the NPC Presidium, in practice, however, the ruling Communist Party of China reserves the post of President for its current General Secretary. Like all officers of state elected by the NPC, the President is elected from a one name ballot, in the event that the office of President falls vacant, the Vice-President succeeds to the office. In the event that both offices fall vacant, the Chairman of the NPC Standing Committee temporarily acts as President until the NPC can elect a new President and Vice-President, in addition, the President names and dismisses ambassadors to foreign countries, signs and annuls treaties with foreign entities. According to the Constitution, all of these require the approval or confirmation of the National Peoples Congress. The President also conducts state visits on behalf of the Peoples Republic, under the constitution the state visit clause is the only presidential power that does not stipulate any form of oversight from the National Peoples Congress. As the vast majority of powers are dependent on the ratification of the NPC, the President is, in essence. It is therefore conceived to function as an symbolic institution of the state rather than an office with true executive powers. Upon the nomination of the Premier, the NPC convenes to confirm the nomination, to date, it has never rejected a personnel nomination

2.
Zhou Enlai
–
Zhou Enlai was the first Premier of the Peoples Republic of China, serving from October 1949 until his death in January 1976. Zhou served under Chairman Mao Zedong and was instrumental in the Communist Partys rise to power, and later in consolidating its control, forming foreign policy, a skilled and able diplomat, Zhou served as the Chinese foreign minister from 1949 to 1958. He helped devise policies regarding the disputes with the U. S. Taiwan. Zhou survived the purges of other top officials during the Cultural Revolution, while Mao dedicated most of his later years to political struggle and ideological work, Zhou was the main driving force behind the affairs of state during much of the Cultural Revolution. His attempts at mitigating the Red Guards damage and his efforts to protect others from their wrath made him popular in the Cultural Revolutions later stages. As Mao Zedongs health began to decline in 1971 and 1972, Zhous health was also failing, however, and he died eight months before Mao on 8 January 1976. The massive public outpouring of grief in Beijing turned to anger towards the Gang of Four, although succeeded by Hua Guofeng, it was Deng Xiaoping, Zhous ally, who was able to outmaneuver the Gang of Four politically and eventually take Maos place as paramount leader by 1978. Zhou Enlai was born in Huaian, Jiangsu province on 5 March 1898, the Zhou family was originally from Shaoxing in Zhejiang province. During the late Qing dynasty, Shaoxing was famous as the home of such as Zhous. To move up the ladder in civil service, the men in these often had to be transferred. Even after the move, however, the continued to view Shaoxing as its ancestral home. Zhous grandfather, Zhou Panlong, and his granduncle, Zhou Junang, were the first members of the family to move to Huaian, Panlong apparently passed the provincial examinations, and Zhou Enlai later claimed that Panlong served as magistrate governing Huaian county. Zhous father, Zhou Yineng, was the second of Zhou Panlongs four sons, Zhous birth mother, surnamed Wan, was the daughter of a prominent Jiangsu official. Like many others, the fortunes of Zhous large family of scholar-officials were decimated by a great economic recession that China suffered in the late 19th century. Zhou Yineng had a reputation for honesty, gentleness, intelligence and concern for others and he was unsuccessful in his personal life, and drifted across China doing various occupations, working in Beijing, Shandong, Anhui, Shenyang, Inner Mongolia and Sichuan. Zhou Enlai later remembered his father as being away from home. Soon after birth, Zhou Enlai was adopted by his fathers youngest brother, Zhou Yigan, apparently the adoption was arranged because the family feared Yigan would die without an heir. Zhou Yigan died soon after the adoption, and Zhou Enlai was raised by Yigans widow, madame Chen was also from a scholarly family and received a traditional literary education

3.
Soong Ching-ling
–
Soong Ching-ling was the second wife of Sun Yat-sen, one of the leaders of the 1911 revolution that established the Republic of China, and was often referred to as Madame Sun Yat-sen. She was a member of the Soong family and, together with her siblings and she has become known as the mother of modern China. During the Cultural Revolution, however, she was heavily criticized, Soong survived the Cultural Revolution, but appeared less frequently after 1976. As the chairman of the Standing Committee of the National Peoples Congress from 1976 to 1978, during her final illness in May 1981, she was given the special title of Honorary President of the Peoples Republic of China. Soong Ching-ling was born to businessman and missionary Charlie Soong in Chuansha, Pudong, Shanghai and she graduated from McTyeire School for Girls in Shanghai, and Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia, United States. Like her sisters, she spoke fluent English due to being educated in English for most of her life, Soong married Sun Yat-sen, leader of Chinas 1911 revolution and founder of the Kuomintang, on 25 October 1915, even though her parents greatly opposed the match. After Suns death in 1925, she was elected to the KMT Central Executive Committee, however, she left China for Moscow after the expulsion of the Communists from the KMT in 1927, accusing the KMT of betraying her husbands legacy. Her younger sister, May-ling, married Chiang Kai-shek shortly afterward and she resided afterwards in Shanghai until July 1937, when the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out. Following the outbreak of hostilities, she moved first to Hong Kong, then to Chongqing, in 1939, she founded the China Defense League, which raised funds and sought supplies primarily for the Chinese Communist controlled areas of northern China. In 1946, the League was renamed the China Welfare fund, continuing to seek funds, during the Chinese Civil War, Soong permanently broke with her family and supported the Communists. In 1948, she became chairwoman of the Revolutionary Committee of the Kuomintang. On 1 October, she was a guest at the ceremony in Tiananmen Square marking the birth of the new Peoples Republic of China, the Nationalist government issued an order for her arrest, but this was soon mooted by the swift military victory of the Communists. The KMT fled from mainland China to Taiwan soon after this, Soong was held in great esteem by the victorious Communists, who reckoned her as a link between their movement and Suns earlier movement. In April 1951, it was announced that she had awarded the Stalin Peace Prize for 1950. In 1950, Soong became chairman of the Chinese Peoples Relief Administration and her China Welfare Fund was reorganized as the China Welfare Institute and began publishing the magazine China Reconstructs, now published as China Today. In 1953, a collection of her writings, Struggle for New China, was published, in 1953 Soong served on the committees preparing for elections to the new National Peoples Congress and the drafting of the 1954 constitution. Soong was elected a Shanghai deputy to the first NPC, which adopted the constitution at its first meeting in September 1954 and she was elected one of 14 vice-chairmen of the NPCs standing committee, chaired by Liu Shaoqi. In December of the year, she was elected a vice-chairman of the CPPCC, which became a consultative body

4.
Mao Zedong
–
His Marxist–Leninist theories, military strategies, and political policies are collectively known as Maoism or Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. Mao adopted Marxism–Leninism while working at Peking University and became a member of the Communist Party of China. On October 1,1949, Mao proclaimed the foundation of the Peoples Republic of China, in the following years Mao solidified his control through land reform campaigns against landlords, and perceived enemies of the state he termed as counter-revolutionaries. In 1957, he launched the Great Leap Forward campaign that aimed to rapidly transform Chinas economy from an economy to an industrial one. The campaign contributed to a famine, whose death toll is estimated at between 15 and 45 million. In 1972, Mao welcomed American President Richard Nixon in Beijing, signalling a policy of opening China, Mao suffered a series of heart attacks in 1976, and died in September, aged 82. He was succeeded as Paramount leader by Hua Guofeng, who was sidelined and replaced by Deng. A controversial figure, Mao is regarded as one of the most important individuals in modern world history, Mao Zedong was born on December 26,1893 in Shaoshan village, Hunan Province, China. His father, Mao Yichang, was an impoverished peasant who had become one of the wealthiest farmers in Shaoshan. Growing up in rural Hunan, Mao Zedong described his father as a stern disciplinarian, Maos mother, Wen Qimei, was a devout Buddhist who tried to temper her husbands strict attitude. Zedong too became a Buddhist, but abandoned this faith in his mid-teenage years, at age 8, Mao was sent to Shaoshan Primary School. At age 13, Mao finished primary education, and his father united him in a marriage to the 17-year-old Luo Yigu. Mao refused to recognise her as his wife, becoming a critic of arranged marriage. Luo was locally disgraced and died in 1910, interested in history, Mao was inspired by the military prowess and nationalistic fervour of George Washington and Napoleon Bonaparte. The famine spread to Shaoshan, where starving peasants seized his fathers grain and he disapproved of their actions as morally wrong, but claimed sympathy for their situation. At age 16, Mao moved to a primary school in nearby Dongshan. In 1911, Mao began middle school in Changsha, Revolutionary sentiment was strong in the city, where there was widespread animosity towards Emperor Puyis absolute monarchy and many were advocating republicanism. The republicans figurehead was Sun Yat-sen, an American-educated Christian who led the Tongmenghui society, in Changsha, Mao was influenced by Suns newspaper, The Peoples Independence, and called for Sun to become president in a school essay

5.
Chairman of the Communist Party of China
–
The Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China was the head of the Communist Party of China. In 1982, it was succeeded by the General Secretary of the Central Committee, between 1922 and 1925, Chen Duxiu served as Chairman of the Central Executive Committee, but the name was changed in General Secretary of the Central Executive Committee in 1925. The post was first introduced in March 1943, when the Politburo decided to discharge Zhang Wentian as General Secretary. As his replacement, Mao Zedong, who had been the de facto leader of the party since the Long March, was named as Chairman of the Politburo of the CPC Central Committee. The chairman was elected by the Central Committee in plenary session and had powers over the CC. The 1956 Party Constitution introduced the multiple Vice-Chairman post, since 1945, Liu Shaoqi was the highest-ranking vice-chairman from 1956 to 1966. The 1969 Party Constitution introduced the post of a single vice-chairman, the 1973 Constitution re-introduced the collective vice-chairmanship. The 1975 Chinese Constitution reinforced the influence of the party on the state, the Central Committee was placed before the National Peoples Congress. Article 15 said that the Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China leads all the forces of the country. These changes were reversed by the 1982 Constitution of the Peoples Republic of China which placed the Party below the State and created a state CMC in parallel to the Party CMC. Although Hua Guofeng succeeded Mao as party chairman, by 1978 he had lost power to Vice-Chairman Deng Xiaoping, the post of Chairman was abolished in 1982, and most of its functions were transferred to the revived post of General Secretary. The move was made as part of an effort to distance the country from Maoist politics. Specifically, Deng and the members of the CPC leadership wanted to prevent another leader from rising above the party. 8th Central Committee Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, Chen Yun, 10th Central Committee Hua Guofeng, Zhou Enlai, Wang Hongwen, Kang Sheng, Li Desheng, Ye Jianying, Deng Xiaoping. 11th Central Committee Ye Jianying, Deng Xiaoping, Chen Yun, Li Xiannian, Wang Dongxing, Hua Guofeng, Zhao Ziyang

6.
Lin Biao
–
Lin Biao was a Marshal of the Peoples Republic of China who was pivotal in the Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War, especially in Northeast China. Lin was the general who commanded the decisive Liaoshen and Pingjin Campaigns, in which he co-led the Manchurian Field Army to victory and he crossed the Yangtze River in 1949, decisively defeated the Kuomintang and took control of the coastal provinces in Southeast China. He ranked third among the Ten Marshals, Zhu De and Peng Dehuai were considered senior to Lin, and Lin ranked directly ahead of He Long and Liu Bocheng. Lin abstained from taking a role in politics after the civil war ceased in 1949. He led a section of the civil bureaucracy as one of the co-serving Deputy Vice Premiers of the Peoples Republic of China from 1954 onwards. Lin became more active in politics when named one of the co-serving Vice Chairmen of the Communist Party of China in 1958 and he held the three responsibilities of Vice Premier, Vice Chairman and Minister of National Defense from 1959 onwards. Lin died on September 13,1971 when a Hawker Siddeley Trident he was crashed in Öndörkhaan of Mongolia. The exact events of this Lin Biao incident have been a source of speculation ever since, the Chinese governments official explanation is that Lin and his family attempted to flee following a botched coup against Mao. Others have argued that they fled out of fear they would be purged, following Lins death, he was officially condemned as a traitor by the Communist Party. Since the late 1970s Lin and Maos wife Jiang Qing have been labeled the two major forces of the Cultural Revolution, receiving official blame from the Chinese government. Lin Biao was the son of a merchant family in Huanggang. His name at birth was Lin Yurong, Lins father opened a small handicrafts factory in the mid-late 1910s, but was forced to close the factory due to heavy taxes imposed by local militarists. After closing the factory, Lins father worked as a purser aboard a river steamship, Lin entered primary school in 1917, but moved to Shanghai in 1919 to continue his education. As a child, Lin was much interested in participating in student movements than in pursuing his formal education. Lin joined an organization of the Communist Youth League before he graduated high school in 1925. Later in 1925 he participated in the May Thirtieth Movement and enrolled in the newly established Whampoa Military Academy in Guangzhou, as a young cadet, Lin admired the personality of Chiang Kai-shek, who was then the Principal of the Academy. At Whampoa, Lin also studied under Premier Zhou Enlai, who was eight years older than Lin, Lin had no contact with Zhou after their time in Whampoa, until they met again in Yanan in the late 1930s. Lins relationship with Zhou was never close, but they rarely opposed each other directly

7.
Ningxiang
–
Ningxiang County is a county and the 2nd most populous county-level division in the Province of Hunan, China, it is under the administration of Changsha City. Located in the central east of Hunan Province, Ningxiang covers 2,906 km2 with registered population of 1,393,528, the county has 4 subdistricts,21 towns and 4 townships under its jurisdiction, the county seat is Yutan Subdistrict. Ningxiang was a site of spectacular Shang archaeological finds In 2004, the findings were of a city site that included two large yellow earth artificial building sites and two even larger sites that may have been palace dwellings. Remnants of moats were found both inside and outside the city, in the highlands outside the city were excavated seven small tombs for nobles and lords which contained many bronze culture implements as well as those made of jade. The site was listed in Beijing as one of the top ten archeological discoveries of 2004, Ningxiang County is located in the middle of Hunan province. The county has an area of 2,903.52 square kilometres. Ningxiang County is in the monsoon climate zone and exhibits four distinct seasons. Spring and fall are warm, while winter is chilly with cold winds, winter temperatures average around 5 °C. Summers are very hot and dry with a July daily average of 35 °C, the Wei River flows through Ningxiang County and has seven major tributaries, Huangjuan River, Duan River, Mei River, Tiechong River, Yutang River, Chu River and Wu River. The Jin River flows through Ningxiang County to Xiangtan, is one of the largest tributaries of the Xiang River, the Huangcai Reservoir, also known as Qingyang Lake, is a large reservoir located in the northwestern part of Ningxiang County. It is the largest body of water in Ningxiang County and the largest reservoir in Ningxiang County, the Tianping Reservoir, also known as Qingshan Lake, is a large reservoir located in the western part of Ningxiang County. It is the second largest body of water in Ningxiang County, the highest natural elevation in Ningxiang County is 1071m at Wazizhai. Ningxiang is one of the most developed counties in Hunan, it ranked the 62th in the Top100 of counties and it is one of the best developed manufacturing counties and county-level cities in the province, the manufacturing industry is its economic pillar. Ningxiangs economic engines are food and beverage, Advanced equipment manufacturing, new materials, modern industry, machinery manufacture. Ningxiang County has a variety of industries, such as the Wangbuliao Clothing, Sundance Clothing, Tsingtao Brewery, Jiajia Food, the countys manufacturering products include paper, technological equipment, automobiles, food, clothing and other goods. The service sector of the economy includes things like banking, health care, construction, communications, education, tourism. Tourism comprises a part of Ningxiang Countys economy, with 20 million visitors spending ￥2 billion in 2014. The Ningxiang Economic and Technological Development Zone consists of parts of Chengjiao, Shuangjiangkou and it was created on 10 January,1998 and upgraded to an ETZ at state level On 11 November,2010

8.
Hunan
–
Hunan Province is the 7th most populous Province of China and the 10th most extensive by area. The name Hunan means south of Lake Dongting, a lake in the northeast of the province, vehicle license plates from Hunan are marked Xiang, after the Xiang River, which runs from south to north through Hunan and forms part of the largest drainage system for the province. Hunans primeval forests were first occupied by the ancestors of the modern Miao, Tujia, Dong and it entered the written history of China around 350 BC, when under the kings of the Zhou Dynasty, it became part of the State of Chu. After Qin conquered the Chu heartland in 278 BC, the region came under the control of Qin, the agricultural colonization of the lowlands was carried out in part by the Han state, which managed river dikes to protect farmland from floods. To this day many of the villages in Hunan are named after the Han families who settled there. Migration from the north was especially prevalent during the Eastern Jin Dynasty and the Southern and Northern Dynasties Periods, during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period, Hunan was home to its own independent regime, Ma Chu. Hunan and Hubei became a part of the province of Huguang until the Qing dynasty, Hunan province was created in 1664 from Huguang, renamed to its current name in 1723. Hunan became an important communications center due to its position on the Yangzi River and it was an important centre of scholarly activity and Confucian thought, particularly in the Yuelu Academy in Changsha. It was also on the Imperial Highway constructed between northern and southern China, the land produced grain so abundantly that it fed many parts of China with its surpluses. The population continued to climb until, by the century, Hunan became overcrowded. Some of the uprisings, such as the ten-year Miao Rebellion of 1795–1806, were caused by ethnic tensions, the Taiping Rebellion began in the south in Guangxi Province in 1850. The rebellion spread into Hunan and then further eastward along the Yangzi River valley, ultimately, it was a Hunanese army under Zeng Guofan who marched into Nanjing to put down the uprising in 1864. Hunan was relatively quiet until 1910 when there were uprisings against the crumbling Qing dynasty and it was led by Hunanese native Mao Zedong, and established a short-lived Hunan Soviet in 1927. The Communists maintained an army in the mountains along the Hunan-Jiangxi border until 1934. Under pressure from the Nationalist Kuomintang forces, they began the Long March to bases in Shaanxi Province, after the departure of the Communists, the KMT army fought against the Japanese in the second Sino-Japanese war. They defended the Changsha until it fell in 1944, japan launched Operation Ichigo, a plan to control the railroad from Wuchang to Guangzhou. Hunan was relatively unscathed by the war that followed the defeat of the Japanese in 1945. In 1949, the Communists returned once more as the Nationalists retreated southward, as Mao Zedongs home province, Hunan supported the Cultural Revolution of 1966–1976

9.
Qing dynasty
–
It was preceded by the Ming dynasty and succeeded by the Republic of China. The Qing multi-cultural empire lasted almost three centuries and formed the base for the modern Chinese state. The dynasty was founded by the Jurchen Aisin Gioro clan in Manchuria, in the late sixteenth century, Nurhaci, originally a Ming vassal, began organizing Banners, military-social units that included Jurchen, Han Chinese, and Mongol elements. Nurhaci formed the Jurchen clans into an entity, which he renamed as the Manchus. By 1636, his son Hong Taiji began driving Ming forces out of Liaodong and declared a new dynasty, in 1644, peasant rebels led by Li Zicheng conquered the Ming capital, Beijing. The Ten Great Campaigns of the Qianlong Emperor from the 1750s to the 1790s extended Qing control into Central Asia, the early rulers maintained their Manchu ways, and while their title was Emperor, they used khan to the Mongols and they were patrons of Tibetan Buddhism. They governed using Confucian styles and institutions of government and retained the imperial examinations to recruit Han Chinese to work under or in parallel with Manchus. They also adapted the ideals of the system in dealing with neighboring territories. The Qianlong reign saw the apogee and initial decline in prosperity. The population rose to some 400 million, but taxes and government revenues were fixed at a low rate, corruption set in, rebels tested government legitimacy, and ruling elites did not change their mindsets in the face of changes in the world system. Following the Opium War, European powers imposed unequal treaties, free trade, the Taiping Rebellion and the Dungan Revolt in Central Asia led to the deaths of some 20 million people, most of them due to famines caused by war. In spite of disasters, in the Tongzhi Restoration of the 1860s, Han Chinese elites rallied to the defense of the Confucian order. The initial gains in the Self-Strengthening Movement were destroyed in the First Sino-Japanese War of 1895, in which the Qing lost its influence over Korea, New Armies were organized, but the ambitious Hundred Days Reform of 1898 was turned back by Empress Dowager Cixi, a conservative leader. Sun Yat-sen and other revolutionaries competed with reformist monarchists such as Kang Youwei, after the deaths of Cixi and the Guangxu Emperor in 1908, the hardline Manchu court alienated reformers and local elites alike. The Wuchang Uprising on October 11,1911, led to the Xinhai Revolution, General Yuan Shikai negotiated the abdication of Puyi, the last emperor, on February 12,1912. Nurhaci declared himself the Bright Khan of the Later Jin state in both of the 12–13th century Jurchen Jin dynasty and of his Aisin Gioro clan. His son Hong Taiji renamed the dynasty Great Qing in 1636, there are competing explanations on the meaning of Qīng. The character Qīng is composed of water and azure, both associated with the water element and this association would justify the Qing conquest as defeat of fire by water

10.
Kaifeng
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Kaifeng, known previously by several names, is a prefecture-level city in east-central Henan, China. It was once the capital of the Song dynasty, and is one of the Eight Ancient Capitals of China, there are currently nearly 5 million people living in its metropolitan area. The postal romanization for the city is Kaifeng and its official one-character abbreviation in Chinese is 汴. Its name was originally Qifeng, but the syllable qi was changed to the essentially synonymous kai to avoid the naming taboo of Liu Qi, as with Beijing, there have been many reconstructions during its history. In 364 BC during the Warring States period, the State of Wei founded a city called Daliang as its capital in this area, during this period, the first of many canals in the area was constructed linking a local river to the Yellow River. When the State of Wei was conquered by the State of Qin, Kaifeng was destroyed and abandoned except for a market town. Early in the 7th century, Kaifeng was transformed into a commercial hub when it was connected to the Grand Canal as well as through the construction of a canal running to western Shandong. In 781 during the Tang dynasty, a new city was reconstructed and named Bian, Bian was the capital of the Later Jin, Later Han, and Later Zhou of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. The Song dynasty made Bian its capital when it overthrew the Later Zhou in 960, shortly afterwards, the city underwent further expansion. During the Song, when it was known as Dongjing or Bianjing, Kaifeng was the capital, typhus was an acute problem in the city. In 1049, the Youguosi Pagoda – or Iron Pagoda as it is called today – was constructed measuring 54.7 metres in height and it has survived the vicissitudes of war and floods to become the oldest landmark in this ancient city. Another Song-dynasty pagoda, Po Tower, dating from 974, has partially destroyed. Another well-known sight was the clock tower of the engineer, scientist. Kaifeng reached its peak importance in the 11th century when it was a commercial and industrial center at the intersection of four major canals. During this time, the city was surrounded by three rings of city walls and probably had a population of between 600,000 and 700,000 and it is believed that Kaifeng was the largest city in the world from 1013 to 1127. This period ended in 1127 when the city fell to Jurchen invaders during the Jingkang Incident and it subsequently came under the rule of the Jurchen Jin dynasty, which had conquered most of North China during the Jin–Song Wars. While it remained an important administrative center, only the city area inside the city wall of the early Song remained settled. One major problem associated with Kaifeng as the capital of the Song was its location

Deng Xiaoping (22 August 1904 – 19 February 1997), courtesy name Xixian (希贤) was a Chinese revolutionary and …

Deng Xiaoping in 1979

Deng Xiaoping at age 16, studying in France.

Deng's name is spelled "Teng Hi Hien" on this employment card from the Hutchinson shoe factory in Châlette-sur-Loing, France. Deng worked there on two occasions as seen from the dates, eight months in 1922 and again in 1923 when he was fired after one month. The bottom annotation reads "refused to work, do not take him back".